Backup systems for computers are well known. Backup systems provide for the redundant storage of data, so that a computer can be restored to a previous state after an event that results in the loss of data on the computer. As those skilled in the art will appreciate, data stored on a computer can be very valuable and the loss of data can result in severe economic hardship.
Banks, stock brokerages, and other companies commonly store large amounts of data on computers. This data is vital to the day-to-day operations of such businesses. For example, it is easy to appreciate that a bank's account records, which are commonly stored in a computer, are necessary in order to facilitate the regular business transactions of the bank.
Events such as fires, earthquakes, thefts, and hard disk failures may result in the loss of valuable computer data. If the only copy of a company's data is stored on the affected computer, then the loss may be permanent and may have catastrophic consequences.
However, if the data was previously backed up, then the data may be restored, so that the routine operations of the business may continue with a minimum of disruption. Thus, the backing up of data stored on computers is considered necessary and has generally become routine.
Backup systems typically comprise a repository and software which drives the repository. The software is configured so as to copy all or a portion of the data from a computer to media of the repository. Various different types of repositories are in widespread use. Local backup drives and digital virtual devise (DVD or DVD ROM) repositories are commonly used with smaller data storage requirements and tape storage or large disk drives are used on computers or in networks with large data storage requirements.
The networking of computers had, for a time, simplified the backup process by providing a central data storage location for multiple computers. That is, several client computers were commonly connected to a server and all of the data used by the client computers was stored in a central location by the server. Thus, only the single server needed to be backed up in order to adequately safeguard the data used by all of the client computers.
However, the data storage capacity of the client computers continues to increase and the number of clients on networks has increased, it eventually became more practical to store the large amounts of data required by client computers at the client computers themselves, rather than at the servers where bandwidth restrictions would limit the client computer's access to the data. Thus, we are once again faced with having to backup multiple client computers.
Additional legal and statutory requirements have also been put in place by government organizations through regulations and even local city and state ordinances have been placed requirements on how long data needs to be archived and saved and the type of data that needs to be archived and saved. For example, financial data may need to be archived every day and stored for a period of seven years where legal data can be archived every week and stored for a period of five years. Therefore, in a contemporary network, data may be backed up from a plurality of clients or even locations on a client computer, on a selected one of a plurality of different repositories at a plurality of different locations.
The traditional backup solutions have attempted to address some of these issues by providing the information technology manager (IT Manager) with the ability to manually setup policies for specific data to be saved at a specific location on a specific repository designed for long term storage on a very granular level. Unfortunately, this process is very tedious and is very impractical once one realizes how many types of data are on any given client, the numbers of regulations are on each type of data, how often the data must be archived and the best location to archive the data based on the requirements. Therefore it is desirable for the IT Manager to have an integrated data management system that has a central command module that enables the ability to establish data sources, in data paths to repositories with policies in a visual manner that enables a system view with the ability to also view on a granular level.